“God, Arielle.” He buried his face in her neck, pushed into her again, then hissed and pulled back. “Not apologizing,” he repeated, sounding more defeated now, “but also not trying to embarrass myself. Sorry, I need a minute.”
“I can do you one better if you like.” She moved her hand to his belt buckle.
“You’re playingverydirty, Becker.”
“Notthatdirty,” she said with a grin, turning them around to press Judah up against the wall. “Your pants are still on.”
He closed his eyes and leaned back against the tile, exhaling sharply as she made quick work of his fly. “Okay, sonowyou’re playing dirty.”
“Want me to stop?”
“Literally never.”
Arielle reached into his boxer briefs and wrapped her hand around him, relishing both the heavy, silky-skinned thickness and Judah’s immediate reaction. There was just something about reducing a man famous for his voice to nothing but soft moans and the prayer of her name.
It wasn’t long before his breaths grew rapid and shallow, buta quick scan of the room revealed no easy way to keep this neat, other than the rough paper towels in the dispenser, which she couldn’t bring herself to use for his first time. Instead, she grabbed a few and set them on the floor.
“What—” Judah’s eyes flew open at the loss of contact as she released him. “Are you—oh. Oh, oh, oh.” His jaw dropped with awe as he watched Arielle lower herself to her knees. “God, that’s an incredible view. But I—I’m not gonna last—”
“Just relax and enjoy, Judah.”
She held his gaze as she flicked out her tongue, teasing around the crown of his cock until his eyes rolled back in his head and he was reduced to panting, begging, his fingers digging desperately into her hair. It was addictive, the way he responded to her, the way he ceded control, the way he wasn’t prim or proper or professional at all at that moment. Finally, she took mercy and went all in, taking in as much of him as she could.
The sound that escaped him was entirely unholy, and it flashed through her mind that she wanted to remember this, the way she in particular made him sing, the way no one else ever had. And when he bit his hand to stop himself from roaring as he came, she thought about how next time, she wanted to hear him at full volume.
Next time.
There couldn’t be a next time.
Could there?
“Holy hell,” he breathed, bracing himself against the hideous wallpaper. “That was…” He shook his head. “You are…”
God, he was so cute as a mess.Cutewasnotan adjective she’d ever imagined using about Judah Klein, but as she watched him regain himself while helping her back to standing, she wanted to capture and frame the moment.
At least until he once again decided he hated himself for it. Or her. Or both.
She turned away to wash her hands and smooth down her clothes, giving Judah the privacy to fix himself up too. But once they put themselves back together, Ari couldn’t help wondering again whether there actually would be a next time. “Give me your phone,” she demanded once he’d rinsed and dried his hands.
He raised an eyebrow as he handed it over, and she smiled as she put in her number, using “For a good time” as her first name and “call” as her last. “There,” she said, sliding it into his pocket. “Next time you’re thinking of ‘taking care of yourself,’ give me a call. I am a really, really good helper.”
And then she left him behind to go back to the party, uncertain whether she’d ever hear from him but hoping way too hard that she would.
Judah left the party shortly after, but not before offering to take Akiva out to breakfast to make up for his early departure. Unfortunately, even getting to bed at a halfway decent hour didn’t come with a whole lot of sleep. His mind wouldn’t stop racing with the mental image of Arielle Becker on her knees, the memory of her skin under his fingertips, and the implications of everything they’d done. He still couldn’t quite believe the speed with which he’d gone from Never Been Kissed to having gotten half naked in a bar bathroom with the hottest woman he’d ever met, and he had no idea how to process it.
He definitely did not call her when he jerked off in the middle of the night, still thinking about it, or that morning when he’d forced a cold shower to suffice.
But twelve hours later, he was still experiencing it all in hi-def in his brain, and it was A Problem.
This is why respectable holy men don’t touch anyone but their wives.
It was amazing how only a few weeks ago, abiding by every Jewishlaw regarding interaction between unmarried men and women had been a walk in the park for him, and now he could think about nothing but violating them again and again in a hundred different ways. But while he wasn’t exactly proud of his inability to focus or compartmentalize, he couldn’t help feeling optimistic for the first time in a long time that maybe dating wasn’t going to be so hopeless after all—that he wouldn’t always be the perpetually single wedding singer. Arielle Becker was a wildly wrong choice for him, so if he could be impossibly, infuriatingly, unnervingly attracted to her, surely he could find himself attracted to someone who could behave in public, who wanted marriage and babies and, you know, actually liked him.
He just never imagined that it could all be so… consuming, that a singular woman could occupy his every waking thought.
In fairness, he’d been dating for almost a decade and a half, and none ever had. But surely that was about the fact that she wore her libido on her sleeve in a way that was completely alien to him, not about Arielle herself. Her demeanor gave him confidence, was all.
Right?
